Shy Mimi needs a forever home

Mimi is a shy 9-year-old cat who desperately wants a forever home. Will it be you? (Hayward Animal Shelter)

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s officially kitten season and shelters are starting to fill up with the little darlings. It’s important to find homes for all of these animals, but I feel sad for the older cats who aren’t, perhaps, as amazingly cute as the kittens.

One of those overlooked cats is Mimi, a gorgeous 9-year-old cat that has been waiting at the Hayward Animal Shelter since early December 2013.

Her family — which adopted Mimi as a kitten 9 years ago — moved and couldn’t take her with them.

Volunteers say that part of the reason Mimi keeps getting overlooked is that she’s shy and tends to hide when potential adopters come visiting. But if you take the time to seek her out and talk softly, she’ll come out and start purring up a storm. She loves to have her neck and chin scratched, and shows much love in return.

Her shyness, volunteers say, is probably caused by being uprooted from the only home she’s ever known. Her journey has brought her to a strange and frightening place, not because it’s bad at the shelter, but because it’s not home.

Her age may be holding her back, too. She’s considered middle-aged, but she is far from old and certainly as deserving of a loving home as her younger shelter buddies.

She is healthy and gets along with other cats. She needs to be an indoor-only kitty, and she will make a wonderful companion and a great lap cat.

Do you have a place in your heart and your home for Mimi? Please consider giving her back a stable, loving family.

And you can get a kitten, too.

Visit the shelter at 16 Barnes Court in Hayward, or call 510-292-7200. The shelter is open 1-5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.